A Walking Shadow
by ladymacbeth99
Summary: AU. Loki's fall from the Bifrost killed him. His spirit returns to haunt Asgard, but Frigga is the only one able to see or hear him. Even more unfortunately, Loki has not yet realized that he is dead.
1. Chapter 1

Today is the day.

Frigga has prepared herself for this—expected, half-heartedly, that it might bring her some catharsis—but it is still a struggle to maintain her regal poise as she oversees the servants in the Great Hall, taking down the black silk banners and replacing them with the usual gold. They clear away the lilies and the hyacinths. All the visible trappings of mourning are discarded, for the traditional observance period for a death in the royal family is now over.

Exactly six months ago, Loki fell. Life in Asgard may return to normal, but Frigga cannot. She is stuck, caught in a state between dreaming and waking. Her son—the baby she once cradled and soothed; the toddler whose tears she had kissed away; the clever imp of a child who once sat at her feet learning to weave magic just like her; the reclusive adolescent who still shared private jokes with her; the young man who made her heart swell with pride—is dead.

He is dead—but he is not yet _gone_.

Frigga feels like she is leading two separate lives, or perhaps three. In public, she is serene, collected, showing only a quiet sorrow for her younger son's death, but still capable of going about her everyday responsibilities—just as a queen should. She still smiles and exchanges pleasantries with the ladies of the court. She still manages the staff and the household finances. She still maintains alliances with foreign royalty, still appears united with her husband in public.

In whatever moments she can steal for herself, however, the cracks in her armor shatter, and she splinters into a thousand pieces.

She is not alone in this, she knows. They all have had to carry on. But the family grieves nonetheless. Odin has become elusive, almost silent. Thor…Her heart aches for Thor, who still seems like a lost child, confused, unable to truly process his loss.

Yet there is something that even Thor and Odin do not know.

Loki is dead, but he is _still here_.

The day after the funeral—after setting adrift a ship without a body, just some possessions and a gossamer shroud she wove herself; after Thor set it ablaze with a bolt of lightning—Frigga retreated to her garden to be alone when she first saw him.

It was Loki. Standing in her garden, admiring her lilacs just as he used to. Greeting her and smiling at her as if nothing were the matter.

Naturally, that day she feared she had gone mad with grief. Her son was lost forever, he had ended his life and fallen into the bottomless Void, she knew that. It could only be a specious delusion, her subconscious trying to insulate her from the horror of losing her child—or else a phantom sent by the Norns to torment her, a manifestation of her guilt.

But if she were to conjure up an illusion of Loki to comfort herself, it would not be like this. She would want to see him as she remembered him: affectionate, eager to please, with a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. She would not choose to see this pale, sad specter her son has become. He is a shadow of the Loki she knew.

Still, she clings to him. She drinks in the sight of him, aches for the sound of his voice, because at any moment he might vanish, and her second chance might be snatched from her. She curses herself for being so selfish. Loki's spirit should not be lingering here; he is clearly restless, miserable, lonely. That he has found neither Helheim nor Valhalla disturbs her, and yet—her son has found a way home. How can she let him go now?

* * *

Loki does not quite know what is wrong with him. He has been feeling very strange—for how long, he cannot say; he seems to lose track of the time these days—the world around him feels surreal, as if he is walking through a dream. He is inexplicably cold all the time. He seems to be misplacing many of his possessions—many of his favorite books have disappeared from his shelves, and his finest cloak from his wardrobe—and he had torn apart his chambers without any success.

_Perhaps my mind is unraveling completely_, he thinks. _This has been happening ever since Thor was banished…or was it when he returned…?_

Whenever he tries to recall those three days of his brother's exile, it is like snatches of a dream, long ago, like viewing the memories through a long tunnel. This makes him worry all the more for his sanity—had the panic and revulsion of discovering his true parentage caused him to utterly fall apart? He remembers making some rather extreme decisions—fighting with Thor, trying to kill Thor, because he would rather destroy with his own hands the being he loved most than to lose him by not being enough.

If that attitude was not madness, Loki does not know what is.

Last night he had the nightmare again. It is nothing but jumbled images and sensations, but it horrifies him all the same: Thor's hammer striking the Bifröst and shattering its crystalline surface. The words, "No, Loki." Falling for an eternity. There are stars everywhere, but it is still so dark and so cold, and no matter how loudly he screams, he cannot hear his own voice.

In the morning, Loki seeks out his brother. Nothing could banish darkness and fear like Thor—his solidness, his surety could always reassure Loki, re-anchor him in reality.

Thor is sitting at the broken edge of the Bifröst. Heimdall stands watch beside him. Neither of them look up at Loki's approach.

"Thor?"

His brother does not respond to the sound.

"Are you still angry with me, brother?" Loki sighs. "I _am_ sorry, Thor. For everything. For telling you that Father was dead. For sending the Destroyer after you."

He reaches a hand out to clasp Thor's shoulder, but his hand is shaking, so he withdraws it. For what seemed like weeks, he had refused to apologize, but eventually Loki's battered pride broke completely, and now he has lost track of the number of times he has asked for Thor's forgiveness.

Still, Thor has not said a word to him since they fought. Has not even acknowledged his presence.

"I never thought you had the stamina to keep up this cold shoulder for as long as you have," Loki snaps, "but this is really becoming childish, Thor."

No reaction. The unhappy crease between Thor's eyebrows is still there, but it is as if he has not heard Loki's words at all. Loki might have been impressed by Thor's apparent newfound control over his emotions, if he were not so frustrated with him.

"Very well. If you still refuse to speak with me, I will not force my presence on you," Loki says bitterly, and turns back the way he came.

Loki finds his mother kneeling in her garden, under an apple tree. Though it is a radiant summer day, her gown is long-sleeved, a somber plum velvet, which strikes him as a little odd. She does not seem to hear his approach, for she studies a blossom in her hands as if deep in thought.

As he draws near, he notices with a pang that the queen looks unwell. There are weary circles under her eyes, her clothes seem to hang on her loosely, every inhale seems a struggle to keep her composure. He cannot imagine what causes her distress.

"Mother?"

She looks up, startled. But the pain that fills her eyes at the sight of him answers his question: he is in some way responsible, directly or indirectly. It vanishes in an instant, however, and she smiles with convincing cheerfulness. She pats the ground besides her in an invitation to sit, and he obliges.

Though he has not quite forgiven her for lying to him, he has taken to spending even more time with Frigga these days. It seems she is the only person in Asgard who will still acknowledge him.

"Hello, Loki," she says softly. Her voice is slightly hoarse.

He realizes she has been opening and closing the petals of the flower in her hand—a simple spell she used to amuse him with when he was a child.

"Thor still will not speak to me," he says dully. _I thought he, of all people, would forgive easily_, he does not say.

Frigga's eyes are guarded. "Your brother loves you, Loki," she says carefully. "But he is also very hurt right now. Give him time."

He reaches for her hand, suddenly desperate for a warm, familiar touch. But she flinches away from him. Crestfallen, he pretends to have been reaching over to pick one of the flowers at their feet instead.

* * *

Today marks six months since Loki died. Thor visits the Bifröst, the nearest thing to a grave that his brother has. He knows his friends would want to support him, and he is grateful for their patience with him these long months, but truthfully, he wishes for quiet. The understanding silence between him and Heimdall leaves Thor all but alone with his thoughts.

Thor seems to recall hearing somewhere—perhaps Loki read it to him long ago from one of his musty old tomes—that people who lose a limb can still feel it attached to their bodies. They reach out, forgetting for a moment that their hand is missing, or the phantom sensation feels so real that they have to keep looking down and checking if the limb is really gone.

Losing his brother has been much the same. A piece of Thor has been cut away, something that had been so omnipresent that is had never even occurred to him that he could _lose_ it. The absence is unnatural. At least once a week, Thor finds himself halfway to Loki's chambers before remembering that they will be empty. In the training ring with his friends—he has thrown himself back into his old routine with desperate vigor—he often neglects his right flank and receives a blow to the ribs from Sif, because he forgets that there is no one guarding his back anymore. At dinner, he sometimes turns to share a joke with an empty seat.

Every time he realizes Loki is dead, Thor loses him all over again.

Lately, he has been making a conscious effort to catch himself before his friends or his mother notice his mistake. They all worry for him enough as it is. But Thor fears eliminating these natural gestures and habits is like accepting that his brother is really, truly gone, and _Thor is not ready to surrender_. Not yet.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know this is much angstier and more melodramatic than what I usually write, but when I was going through some emotional difficulties, I found this kind of writing to be therapeutic both to read and write, so I hope some other people find the same comfort that I did.

Don't worry, those of you who read "The Prisoner;" that will remain my top priority in fic writing.


	2. Chapter 2

For as long as Loki can remember, Thor never has grasped the concept of _boundaries_. Loud and exuberant and with little regard for privacy. Though their parents had given them separate rooms as adolescents—in the vain hope of reducing their squabbling—Thor still always barged into Loki's chambers as comfortably as if they were his own, and no matter how many times the younger prince admonished him to knock, it always slipped Thor's mind in moments of excitement or enthusiasm.

In fact, there was a groove in the wall from the numerous times the door had burst open and ricocheted off it. It remained because Loki had given up mending it over and over—certainly not out of any kind of sentiment.

That is why, one afternoon as he is hunched over his desk, Loki is not the least bit surprised to hear his door creaking open.

"Well, I see you have finally given up avoiding me," he says acerbically without looking up. "And your miraculous transformation on Midgard still has not taught you how to _knock_ before entering."

But something is wrong. Instead of charging into the room, Thor opens the door cautiously and hovers in the doorway. It is disconcerting to see his impetuous brother hesitate about anything.

"Are you coming in, or not?" Loki prompts.

Thor just sighs and hangs his head; the hand on the doorframe goes slack. His face is creased with exhaustion and despair.

_Perhaps his anger has run its course_, Loki thinks, hating the childlike hope rising in him. _Perhaps he has come to reconcile_.

Thor still does not meet Loki's eyes, but he croaks, "I miss you, brother."

"Miss me?" Loki laughs nervously. "I am right here."

Thor does not reply. Instead, he shuts the door and turns back the way he came, leaving Loki standing there, trying to unravel what in Odin's name that was about.

* * *

In the past six months, Thor has learned that grieving is not a linear process. The pain has its ebbs and flows. For a few days, even a week at a time, he can train with his friends, enjoy the sun on his face and breathe in the fresh air with gratitude. He is able to be strong for Mother. He will begin to believe that, someday, remembering his brother's face will not hurt.

Then the next day, Thor can barely find the energy to drag himself out of bed.

Similarly, there are days when he finds himself unable to set foot in Loki's room. It is childish, perhaps, but there is a prickling feeling on the back of his neck, as if he can feel his brother's presence here still.

He never confesses this to anyone—denial never did any good, and he knows, he understands that death has parted them—but nonetheless, the silence and stillness and feeling of unseen eyes watching him is unbearable enough to make him flee.

* * *

Today, however, is not one of those days. He feels no disquiet as he enters.

Thor has tried to stop himself from coming here so often. An empty room can hold no answers, no comfort. Nevertheless, he sits cross-legged on the fur rug near the hearth, as he used to in his youth, glancing periodically at the door as if expecting his brother to walk through any moment and scold him for trespassing.

That is the most painful part of all: the chambers are exactly as Loki left them, obsessively neat except for the open spellbook on the desk and the abandoned quill, a pool of ink dried at the tip. As if he were interrupted in his studies and would return any moment.

Thor has ordered the servants to keep everything in the room this way. In the first few months after Loki's death, Thor would not even allow the chambermaids to clean in here. He had known it was absurd, but he wanted even the air his brother had once breathed to be preserved, untouched, because it was all they had left of him.

Eventually, Frigga took him aside and admonished him gently, _You know Loki would not want it this way_. And Thor had to concede, for his brother would have been horrified to see the dust collecting.

Now, the chambermaid changes the linens and lights the hearth routinely, but knows that after cleaning the desk, she must return the open book to the same curious angle Loki had turned it to—Thor surmised it was to prevent smearing what he had already written, since his brother had been left-handed.

Thor still does not feel he understood his brother, but he treasures every trivial detail now that he can make sense of.

(It is better than contemplating Loki's last few decisions. It is easier than wondering how his brother could have chosen to die.)

He often studies the spellbooks, the cramped notes scrawled in the margins, directions occasionally modified or even scribbled out, and realizes Loki experimented with his magic more than he deferred to orthodoxy. Sometimes he just rests his hand against the page, knowing that, not so long ago, his brother's hand had been there.

Today, however, something is different.

One of the tomes from the shelf above the desk is lying on the bed, opened to an alphabet of obscure ancient runes. Thor _knows_ it was not there yesterday.

He sends for the chambermaid that oversees this floor—a plain, reliable young woman named Æsa, who has always followed his instructions without comment.

"I assure you, my prince, I would never leave anything out of place in here," she responds evenly to his questioning. Thor believes her. There is no guilt or fear in her voice.

"Could one of the younger maids have moved it accidentally?" he prods.

A hint of color creeps up into her face. "Certainly not, my prince," she says firmly, sounding offended. "I tend to this room myself and I don't allow _anyone_ else inside, save for your highness and the king and queen."

This takes Thor somewhat aback. _Father comes here, too? He is so private with his grief that I never know what he is thinking._

But Æsa continues gently, "I understand how important it is to you, Prince Thor. I keep everything just as he left it."

It is a relief that he does not have to justify his grief around her.

Thor knows that there are few who loved Loki. His tricks and underhanded ways had made many enemies among the nobles; the common people whisper even now that the second son of Odin lacked honor and courage. But Loki also was habitually polite to his inferiors, which had earned him the loyalty of many of the servants he knew personally—they are among the few who seem truly sorry that he is gone.

Thor reflects, with no little shame, on his carelessness toward the palace staff before his banishment, how spoiled and thoughtless were his manners. Yet another item to add to his list of things he should have listened to Loki about.

He dismisses Æsa apologetically and replaces the book himself.

Such a silly thing to disturb him so much, but Thor feels shaken. The way it had been lying open near the pillows, he could vividly imagine Loki lying on his stomach, head resting on his elbows, his legs crossed in the air—just the way he used to read when they were youths. It almost seems like a cruel joke.


End file.
